1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method for preparing novel processed ginseng to obtain increased amount of ginsenoside Rg5. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for preparing processed ginseng product and the extract thereof which contains increased amount of ginsenoside Rg5 by treating ginseng under specific pressure and temperature range.
2. Background Art
It has been found that ginseng enforces non-specific resistance to psychological stress and shows maintaining effect on human homeostasis together with other potent pharmacological activities, i.e., alleviation of hypertension, reinforcing activity of insulin, blood glucose lowering activity, stimulating effect on liver RNA synthesis, protein, glucose and lipid metabolism or anticancer activity.
There are many genus of Panax genus plants belonged to Araliaceae, for example, Panax ginseng distributed or cultivated in far-eastern Asia region, Panax quinquefolia in America and Canada, Panax notoginseng in China, Panax trifolia in eastern region of north America, Panax japonica in Japan, China and Nepal, Panax pseudoginseng in Nepal, Panax vietnamensis in Vietnam, Panax elegatior, Panax wangianus and Panax bipinratifidus etc.
Three types of ginseng products have been commercially available i.e., four year's old, five year's and six year's old ginseng and six year's old ginseng product cultivated on autumn has been reported to most potent among them. Particularly, the husk of un-husked ginseng contains lots of saponin, which shows potent activity.
Ginsenosidal saponins isolated from ginseng having dammarane skeleton linked to several saccharides are different from those isolated from the other plants. In particular, there have been reported that ginseng contains about 30 kinds of saponin ingredients, especially ginsenoside Rb1, Rb2, Rc, Rd, Rg, Re etc as main components. Those saponin compounds shows various pharmacological activities and potency according to their chemical structure and ginsenoside Rg5 among them has been highlighted as a medicine due to its potent immuno-potentiating activity as well as vaso dilating activity, anti-cancer activity, neuronal cell protecting activity etc recently.
At present, there have been tried to process conventional ginseng to obtain more potent efficacy or utility by way of changing the structure of ginseng saponin in the process.
Korean Patent Registration No. 10-0192678, discloses a process for preparing a processed ginseng prepared by subjecting hot temperature treatment containing high contents of ginsenoside Rg5 so as to obtaining processed ginseng having improved potency differing from original form of ginseng. However, the processing method could not provide the information on the correlation between the content change of ginsenoside Rg5 and the change of temperature and internal pressure and the method requires toxic organic solvent such as butanol.
The inventors of the present invention have intensively carried out the scientific investigation concerning new processing method to obtain safe and uniform ginseng product. As a result of the investigation, the inventors have found novel processing method for preparing pharmacologically potent ginseng product which have more increased content of ginsenoside Rg5 verified by comparing with conventional ginseng and the processed ginseng product disclosed in prior art and they have finally completed the present invention.